Nvidia GeForce GTX 1070 Gets Upgraded to GDDR5X Memory

After whipping up a GeForce GTX 1060 with GDDR5X memory, Nvidia continues its recycling spree with the GeForce GTX 1070. This time around it wasn't Nvidia who broke the news but Zotac, one of the chipmaker's AIB (add-in-board) partners, that spilled the beans.

Credit: Zotac

Although the GeForce GTX 1070 originally employed GDDR5 memory, the GP104 graphics processor is compatible with GDDR5X memory as we've seen on the GeForce GTX 1070 Ti and GTX 1080 models. This made Nvidia's life a whole lot easier as the chipmaker only needed to swap out the GDDR5 memory for GDDR5X.

The GeForce GTX 1070 AMP Extreme Core GDDR5X is almost a mirror image of the GeForce GTX 1070 AMP Edition. Both come with a 1,607 MHz base clock and 1,797 MHz boost clock. They are also equipped with 8GB of memory across a 256-bit memory interface.

The GeForce GTX 1070 AMP Extreme Core GDDR5X's memory is clocked at 2,002 MHz (8,008 MHz effective) just like the GDDR5 memory on the GeForce GTX 1070 AMP Edition. From a performance standpoint, the GDDR5X model offers zero benefits over the GDDR5 model, which is a darn shame considering that GDDR5X chips can clock all the way up to 10,000MHz.

Zotac listed the GeForce GTX 1070 AMP Extreme Core GDDR5X with a 250W TDP (thermal design power), which is 100W higher than a reference GeForce GTX 1070. It's understandable as the graphics card features a hefty factory overclock out-of-the-box. Curiously, the TDP on the GeForce GTX 1070 AMP Extreme Core GDDR5X is still 30W higher than the company's GeForce GTX 1070 AMP Edition model, which runs with the same overclock.